Twitter to rival Whatsapp and Facebook with standalone messaging app

MICROBLOGGING WEBSITE Twitter apparently will follow in the footsteps of Facebook with a dedicated app for Direct Messages (DM), which it likely will release before the end of the year.

So reported Allthingsd, which heard from unnamed sources that Twitter plans to "significantly update its direct messaging product" in the near future. This is likely to be a dedicated Direct Messaging application, with the firm reportedly looking to challenge rivals Whatsapp, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger.

As it plans to go public, Twitter seems to be focusing heavily on its own messaging service. Recently, the social network started pushing out a feature that allows users to send and receive messages to anyone on the website, and now it seemingly is looking beyond that with plans for a dedicated app, reaffirming its focus on mobile too.

Allthingsd suggested that Twitter has taken inspiration from internet messaging apps such as Whatsapp, and sees its own potential spin-off app as a possible moneymaker. Twitter executives reportedly have met with the Messageme team to discuss plans for a standalone DM app, and the firm reportedly is on track to release this before the end of the year.

The INQUIRER isn't sure that it's a great idea however, as Twitter's direct messaging service has our inbox flooded with nothing but spam. With Twitter gradually rolling out the capability for anyone to send and receive messages on the social network, the number of "OMG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS" messages is only likely to increase.